Awakenings
by Twombly
Summary: Dipper has gone through life unaware of his true potential. That is until a friend of a friend helps him achieve his capabilities.
**This is a story about a lot of things. Life, death, blood, vampires, murder, magic, love, hallucinations, insanity and sometimes food. I hope you enjoy.**

"Dip?"

Mabel said as she shook me and woke me up.

"It's over, sleepyface! You got your life juice back in ya!" I was hooked up to an IV drip at the blood lab, and dozed off during one of my regular transfusions. I had been living with Mabel at our Grunkle Stan's tourist trap for about four years ever since my mom left to teach in Kenya. Despite the fact that we were twins we couldn't be more dissimilar in almost every aspect. Mabel is bright and outgoing with a sunny complexion that was fitting in regards to her personality. I was always the "inward" one. Slender, spending much of my free time indoors, pale and generally preferring silence in the battle of silence vs. loudness. Before you say "You really should go out more and adventure hard, Dipper! The sun is full of sunshininess!" Well there's a reason I'm at a hospital getting a blood transfusion. Before you ask, no, I wasn't shot/stabbed/mauled by a wildebeest out for wildebeest vengeance against humanity. I have a blood disorder that requires regular blood transfusions at the hospital without transfusions; I'm about as appealing and successful at basic operations as a van that has "FreE caNDY" painted on the side. Mabel thankfully doesn't have this disorder, meaning that she's free to eat toothpaste and glitter smoothies, while I've had a rigid list of what and what not to eat.

Life is grand.

Dr. Stephenson came in and saw the nearly empty bloodbag. He was an average enough man. Beard, horn-rimmed glasses, lab coat, wife, child. "Ah, Dipper, you're good to go. See you next Friday." Mabel & I walked out of the doctor's office. Our Grunkle Stan was in the waiting room, flipping through a random issue of Cosmopolis magazine before hastily shoving it under his chair when we walked in. If he were reading the fashion and makeup tips, I would lose my shit.

"Hey, I'm all good for another week. Let's head out." I said as we walked out of the sterile building. After a brief five-minute drive, the three of us returned to the Mystery Shack where Wendy and Soos manned down the fort. I walked in first, and I saw Wendy behind the counter talking to her friend Tambry. Tambry is an anomaly. I've hung out with her multiple times now. Granted, always within the context of Wendy and her other friends, but despite knowing a lot about almost everyone else, Tambry was always a blank. A human question mark.

Unknowable.

When I stepped into the gift shop, Tambry, who was previously talking away with Wendy, abruptly stopped and looked at me with a somewhat hungry look in her eyes.

"Everything okay, Tam?" Wendy said, as she walked over to me. We were now at eye level, while she had a look on her face that suggested that she sensed something, but couldn't quite put her finger on it. After a few seconds of staring, she finally broke the silence. "Oh, sorry, you got something on your shirt." I looked down; there was a small drop of blood on my T-shirt.

"Aw, shit."

"Hey, hey, not your fault. Happens to the best of us. Hey, are you doing anything tonight?"

"Not particularly. Reading, finishing a project for my Marine Biology class, staving off a blood disorder, what are you doing?"

"I was just wondering, do you wanna grab something to eat tonight?"

"Is this a date?"

"Consider it me extending the olive branch of companionship to you. Now do you wanna grab something to eat, or no?" If you were me in this situation, chances are you'd think about it for a minute. I tried to think of any excuse to not go to dinner with a Goth girl who I barely talked to before, but couldn't. Hey, I've done weirder shit before.

"Cool! Meet up at my place around seven."

"Where's your house?"

"You've been to my house. How do you not remember where my house is?"

"Fuller Lane?"

"Yeah, Fuller Lane. Cerulean blue house?"

"Oh yeah. Cerulean blue. Definitely a shade of blue that exists. See you at seven."

"See ya!" She said as she walked out of the shack and drove away. I turned around only to see Mabel giving me the biggest grin on her face.

"Ooooooooooo! Dipster's got a date!"

"It's not a date, Mabel. It's just a platonic thing, you know."

"You say that, but when onethingleadstoanotherhurrhurrhurr!"

"Mabel, ask yourself this, in the four years we've known Tambry, has she ever shown any romantic interest in me? Any signs of a crush? Anything?"

"Never say never, my hairy Casanova!"

I ignored her and went to my room upstairs. I attempted to get some work done on my project about Frogfish, but for whatever reason, I couldn't bring myself to do research or write anything. I just sat on my bed, staring at my screen, almost like I was trying to leave my own body. I looked at the time on my phone. 6:34 PM. Shit, that went by fast. I rode on my bike to Tambry's house. I looked at the time again. 6:54 PM. I knocked on her door and she let me in. I sat on her couch while she stood and looked at me.

"So, what's the plan? Are we heading out, staying in? What?"

"Staying in."

"What do you have? Pizza? Spaghetti? Fajitas?" She simply stared at me.

"Not a fajita person, I take it?" She sighed then spoke up.

"Dipper, I think you're a vampire."

I was immediately confused. "Wha-what?"

"I think you're a vampire."

"…Why do you think I'm a vampire?"

She simply parted open her lips and showed me her teeth. Four sharp fangs where regular human canines should be. She was definitely a vampire.

"Tam, if this is a prank, then this is really weird."

"Dipper, I mean this with the utmost sincerity, I'm a vampire, I can sense other vampires,"

"You're a vampire."

I sat on the couch stunned for several seconds. A person I've known for years is a vampire, and I could've been a vampire for my whole life without knowing it.

"But-but that's stupid! What makes you think I'm a vampire? I don't melt in the sun, I can see my reflection, I can eat garlic knots, I'm not a vampire!"

"How long have you had this 'blood deficiency'? The transfusions?"

I paused for a minute. I was genuinely shocked by her questions?

"I-I would have to say I've been dealing with it my whole life."

"Anything else that made you different from Mabel?"

"Well, It took me a few years to handle going outside for long periods of time. My parents said it was because of a 'sun allergy'. I always felt weak, even when the doctors said that everything was manageable and everything around me felt…different."

"Different how?"

"Different in the sense of connection. I felt like I could see things others don't. Hear things others can't and sometimes, whenever I see people, I don't see people, I see…"

Even though I didn't want to admit it, tears were starting to well up in me.

"I see blood and flesh and organs and…possession."

It was then that I started crying hysterically. Pretty much everything I knew in my life was a lie and it all came crashing down. After a few minutes of non-stop sobbing, I looked up at Tambry and her reassuring face.

"…Dipper?"

"Yeah?"

"There's still really only one way to find out if you're a vampire or not?"

"What's that?"

"Drink the blood of another vampire."

I paused in disbelief. "What?"

"The only way for Latents to access their powers is to drink from other vampires. I did it, my mom did it, my father did it and every other vampire I know did it. Granted, we were babies when we did it, so I can't imagine how weird it sounds to a sixteen year old."

I weighed my options.

"But, I have to warn you, if you want to do this, there's no turning back after this. You could just go home and live the rest of your life the way it was before tonight. Or, you could say yes and be a part of something you couldn't imagine."

I still sat there in silence.

"What would happen to my family?"

"It's all up to you. You could tell them all about what's going on and bring them into this, or you could leave them out and protect them. Darkness doesn't target just one person."

I was still thinking this over

"If you need a few days to think this over, I'll-"

"I'll do it."

"Are you completely, 100% sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. I would like to see what I really am. Human, or vampire."

"Follow me." She walked downstairs to her basement, and I followed. She flicked on the light switch and the basement had a Spartan, clinical feel to it. A metal slab on the left side of the room, a bed with wrist straps on the sides and ankle straps on the edge, a cabinet, and a giant freezer on the back wall. Blood? Organs? Bodies? I was going to become a vampire and I didn't want to know. She made me sit on the bed and strapped my hands and feet to their respective straps.

"Snug?" She said trying to ad some levity to what was going on.

"As comfy as it can really be."

"I've seen my fair share of late bloomers and trust me, you need some straps and a comfy bed."

"What's it like for late bloomers?"

"A lot of thrashing around."

"Oh shit."

"Look, I'm not sugarcoating this. It's not really a pleasant thing to go through. That's why our parents put us through it when we were babies and couldn't remember anything."

"Alright, alright. I'll…try to get through it the best I can."  
"Hey, that's the spirit!" she said punching my shoulder. "Just gotta get Switchy out."

"Switchy?"

"My switchblade. It's special to me." She said as she pulled out a switchblade and dragged it across her wrist two times. She didn't look like she was in pain, almost as if it was routine for her to do. She caught the blood in a vial, eventually reaching the lower third of the vial. Her skin almost on cue closed up the wound. She stood over me with the vial.

"Last chance to say no."

"Let's do it."

She slowly poured the vial of blood into my mouth, and I swallowed all of it. Surprisingly, her blood tasted more like water than the copper taste people associate with blood. After a few seconds, I noticed a change. I could feel her blood going through my veins, my pupils dilated and the fluorescent light over me was flickering on and off. It started slowly, then escalated to an unbelievable intensity and started acting more like a strobe light. Then it was almost as if the basement became more and more abstract. Objects, walls, the floor, the ceiling became a violent blur. Tambry's face completely blank save for vague outlines of where her eyes, nose and mouth should be, almost like they were under her skin. Her voice, once unintelligible with the crashing noise of what was going on suddenly became clear.

"Is everything okay?"

Things felt more and more vivid and intense until I was suddenly naked in a forest with snow on the ground, yet I wasn't cold. There was a figure in the distance and a straight path ahead of me. I ran after the figure through the straight line of a path and came across another me tied to a tree with tears running down its face. Except this me had antlers, fur all over, flesh missing from the chest, right arm and left leg, a tail and legs belonging to a satyr rather than a human. I reached out and touched the center of its chest and I suddenly had a bizarre feeling wash over me, almost like my skin was becoming heavier. I almost instinctively started to strip the skin from my body, screaming all the way. Instead what came out was piercing noise, almost like what someone with tinnitus hears. I went back to me on the bed. I was thrashing on the bed, feeling my teeth getting longer, my throat sore from shouting, and my limbs feeling like they were constantly being broken, rearranged and broken again. I heard Tambry's voice again.

"Be okay, be okay, be okay."

I went back to the forest where I was almost done removing my skin. After a final scream, my old skin was thrown onto the ground, while my new skin was covered in a clear fluid. I couldn't bring myself to look up or ahead. I was simply gazing downwards, and eventually found the energy to look up. The creature managed to free himself from the rope, then proceeded to start eating the old flesh. The creature looked at his body and noticed the antlers receding, the wounds closing up and skin starting to appear over his fur. By the end, he looked like me, but off. His face was off, his body was off and his presence was off. He approached me, looked over me and started strangling me. I was still too weak to fight back, but I found a stone nearby and bashed it in the creature's head. While it was lying down, I staggered towards it, turned it on its back, where it simply said in a demonic voice,

"You are."

I came back to reality, where Tambry was looking at me with concern.

"…Dipper?" She removed the straps, and my arms and legs hung limp over the sides of the bed.

"Come on, lemme help ya get up." She said and she helped me stand on my own two feet. I took about two steps before kneeling over and vomiting. Except this vomit was jet black instead of any other color.

"How do you feel?"

"I feel-I feel like someone I'm not."

"A very common feeling."

"I feel like not a person, but an object. An object that feels like something that shouldn't be."

"Dipper?"

"I feel…new."


End file.
